By WHITNEE ICE
St. Joseph Post
A law enforcement quarter-cent sales tax increase will be taken to a vote tomorrow to increase funding to the Buchanan County Sheriff’s department.
Sheriff Bill Puett says the Sheriff’s Department has been behind in offering competitive wages for quite some time.
“We need more resources and we also need to try to get our wages up to a competitive level to make sure we retain quality people and we quite losing quality trained individuals to other agencies and other professions,” Puett tells St. Joseph Post.
Puett says he wants to address some of the issues facing our community with the tax.
“We just apricate everybody's support and like I said we just want to continue to do outstanding things, serve our community and make sure that we make it a better safer place for everybody to live,” says Puett.
Puett says they need this funding to help keep quality trained employees.
“All the information is coming in so we need some more resources to deal with this massive amount of drugs and fugitives and things that keep coming into our community,” says Puett.
According to Puett, the current law enforcement sales tax was implemented in the 90s and is a quarter-cent sales tax, generating 3.6 million dollars annually. He adds, with a quarter-cent increase, the additional 3.6 million will provide around 18 new positions in addition to salary increases. In order to pass, the tax needs a simple majority vote from constituents. If the tax passes, it will not have a sunset clause.